Carey Sabala

The soundtrack is absolutely killing me. None of it matches the scenes. Music is supposed to elevate what’s happening on screen, not completely clash with it. Why is there a wailing electric guitar while characters are dragging themselves back from a failed mission? It’s giving ‘random Spotify shuffle,’ not cinematic scoring.”

The Monkey had a promising concept: a supernatural toy discovered by twin brothers in their father’s closet. One brother bonds with it while the other bullies him, and soon whispered wishes in the dark begin to come true in sinister ways. As intriguing as the original short story premise is, it just didn’t translate into a full-length film for me. As a lifelong horror fan, I walked away disappointed. The movie leans heavily on the usual “possessed toy” tropes, but then sprinkles in these strange, psychedelic ’60s-style film student sequences that make no sense and completely derail the horror atmosphere. Worse, some scenes—like those at the beginning—seem to exist without purpose or explanation, leaving the story feeling disjointed and hollow. Instead of building dread, it plays more like a wannabe film student’s final project than a polished horror adaptation. A strong premise wasted.

The film presents a curious pacing paradox: while it builds slowly, the “Wolfman” storyline is introduced almost immediately. Unfortunately, the emotional foundation never quite lands. The characters' relationships feel underdeveloped, making it difficult to form any real connection or empathy for them. One telling example is a pivotal moment when the wife pleads, “I don’t want to do this without you. I love you so much.” Yet, due to the lack of chemistry and character depth, the line feels hollow — as if it could’ve been delivered to an inanimate object. Visually, the film leans on jump scares and a handful of clever sensory cues, which provide momentary thrills. Still, for a narrative centered around a family of three isolated in a remote house, grappling with the father’s terrifying transformation, the dramatic core is surprisingly thin.

So compared to some of the dreadful campy Amazon horror movies, this one is actually worse and that's really hard to say. Its not scary, its lacking character development and chemistry - its not even campy. Not to spoil anything but there's even a top camera shot of the big baddie and I was thinking to myself "is that a watermelon? Oh wait, no that's his head. Huh??" Or when the hero's love interest is in trouble, there's like zero... less than zero chemistry for his extreme reaction. Like, my dude, yeah that's a bit of an over reaction for a girl you just met and spent a little fun time with. Anyway, that's my review. Skip it. Don't skip it. But just know, you can't get those hours of your life back.

As a Gen X'r - I was so excited for this movie and to revel in nostalgia. Also I was so excited that most of the original cast was back. So sign me up and gimme my theater nachos. Sadly though, the jokes didn't land, the story dragged and when we finally got the ball rolling, it rolled off a cliff. I heard a few chuckles in the audience but no one was having fun. When the credits rolled, I think everyone was just relieved this fever dream was over.

I'm giving this 2* because its BlumHouse and I'm still pulling for my favorite horror movie house but please stop making these bland "horror" movies for kids, ya'll are better than this. That said, I was hoping this would be way more suspenseful than it was. You can make horror movies or scary movies without blood when done right like The Others or many others that come to mind but this movie was on par with a wannabe "made for TV" movie hoping to capture a broader audience by making a very vanilla jump scare badly written generic movie that you could find a million similar versions on Amazon Prime or Shudder.

I definitely enjoyed it more than any Disney princesses movies. Well done Netflix.

I love cheesy horror movies and vampires and Jamie Fox and Snoop and live in Cali, so I was so stoked for this movie but sadly it was just meh. Story aside (because we knew going in it was supposed to be a cheesy, messy goodtime), in a good horror/comedy, if the story is weak than all you have left are the characters and their chemistry on film and that can be enough...sometimes. I could name tons but just think of Grindhouse or Rocky Horror. We dont love them for their stories, we love them for their gore, their over-the-top camp and the charming quirky characters. Sadly for me with this movie, the chemistry was just off. I don't know if it was due to editing or what but there just was a lack of chemistry, charm and gore. I was bored.

Meh. I was excited for this show but I found myself bored and the pacing was weird. I'll keep watching but so far I'm just bored and don't really care what happens to the characters.

As a fan of The Shining, I loved the movie. It had everything I hoped for. They did a good job blending the original with the current using doubles, old footage and it really did make my fangirl heart flutter. The only thing is it's almost 3 hours long but I was down with it.